Sandy Hook mom shares her children's post-massacre torment in letter advocating meaningful gun control legislation: 'It’s time to stop catering to the gun owners and lobbyists and start caring about our children'

Carrie Battaglia, whose 6-year-old has been making progress with a trauma specialist, says she and the other parents of Sandy Hook won't give up on the gun control fight. “And if our lawmakers don’t make a change, we’ll elect people who will,” she said.

The mother of two children who survived the Sandy Hook massacre has penned a heartrending letter revealing the nightmares that won’t let her daughters move on from that awful day.

After four months of struggling to cope with the trauma of Adam Lanza’s carnage, Carrie Battaglia posted her note online Tuesday.

It burns with a mother’s fury.

Her 6-year-old, who is in the first grade, huddled with 14 other children and their teacher while Lanza carried out his incomprehensible mayhem a mere room away.

“She heard everything. Shooting. Screaming. Pleading. She was sure she was going to die that day and did not want to die for Christmas,” Battaglia, 40, wrote.

“Imagine what this must have been like.”

Now, her 6-year-old suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. She is frightened by noises and has trouble sleeping.

“Almost every night she’s awake with nightmares — sometimes two a night. That’s probably the worst part now, she’s afraid to go to sleep,” Battaglia said in an interview with the Daily News.

“Many times the dream is in the school ... someone, something is getting killed.”

The letter, posted to the Newtown Action Alliance website, says, “The NRA does not care about people, they care about money.”

(Newtown Action Alliance)

The daytime isn’t much better.

“During indoor recess my daughter would hear a loud noise and just put her hands over her ears and become withdrawn,” she said.

Battaglia’s eldest, an 8-year-old third-grader, often relives the helplessness she felt as she and other students took refuge in the firehouse near Sandy Hook Elementary.

“She still gets upset when she talks about losing her principal and the siblings of her friends,” said Battaglia, a software engineer. “It still affects her. Even the fact she could have lost her sister — she gets upset about that as well.”

Both girls are making progress through regular visits to a trauma specialist at their new school, Battaglia said.

But their mental anguish fuels the campaign she and her allies are waging — relentlessly bombarding politicians with letters, emails and phone calls, urging them to pass meaningful gun control legislation.

“It’s time to stop catering to the gun owners and lobbyists and start caring about our children, our families, our teachers, our friends and our neighbors,” Battaglia wrote in her letter, which is posted on the Newtown Action Alliance website.

“The NRA does not care about people, they care about money.”

In describing her 6-year-old's harrowing experience, Battaglia, 40, wrote, “She heard everything. Shooting. Screaming. Pleading. She was sure she was going to die that day and did not want to die for Christmas. Imagine what this must have been like.”

(Newtown Action Alliance)

Battaglia, who also has a 2-year-old girl, said she and many of the families devastated by the Dec. 14 attack were in the gun control fight for the long haul.

“And if our lawmakers don’t make a change, we’ll elect people who will.”

The failure of a ban on assault weapons — like the AR-15, which Lanza used to kill 20 children and six adults before shooting himself — particularly infuriated her.

Congress’ refusal thus far to even vote on a ban felt like a slap in the face.

“It’s almost like it’s the last straw,” she said. “To not have a vote, it’s just awful.”

Politicians don’t understand how Sandy Hook has affected people,” Battaglia said. “Maybe there’s too much pressure from lobbyists. Maybe they think they have enough votes to get reelected.”

Speaking directly to lawmakers in Washington, she wrote, “Changing the laws may ‘inconvenience’ some gun owners, but it may also save a life, perhaps a life that is dear to me or you. Are you really willing to risk it?”